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German industrial output declines in September

08 November 2013 00:46 (UTC +04:00)

In a statement released on Thursday, Germany’s Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) announced that the country’s industrial production declined 0.9 percent in September.

Construction and manufacturing outputs slumped by 1.8 and 2.1 percent, respectively, the statement added.

The weak output data adds to growing concerns over the German economy which seemed to have been spared the long-running debt crisis in the region.

Economists say the eurozone crisis is putting adverse effects on the German economy despite the country’s unmatched level of strength in the single currency area.

Meanwhile, Germany’s unemployment rate increased unexpectedly in October to its highest level since 2011, data from the country’s Federal Labor Office showed.

The data presented on October 30 showed the number of jobless Germans rose by 2,000 to 2.973 million people in seasonally adjusted terms during the month.

October was the third month in a row that unemployment climbed in Germany as the number of jobless people increased by 24,000 in September. In August, the number rose by 7,000.

According to the data released by the Destatis and the European Union statistics office Eurostat on October 24, 16.1 percent of the German population or approximately 13 million people run the risk of plunging into relative poverty.

The number is significantly higher than in Germany’s neighboring countries: the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and France.

The at-risk-of-poverty rate stands at 9.6 percent in the Czech Republic, while it is 10.1 percent in the Netherlands and 14.1 percent in France.